Will Andy be BBC Sports Personality this Year?

I feel the same way about Wiggins, but he did have to do the pedalling on his own, so I guess it's a testament to his physical endurance.

Andy's hair ... and that tie ...

Tour de France certainly requires a lot of stamina - I watched a bit of the last few days, but there's only so much of men cycling very fast in the same direction that I could take, even if the scenerey was lovely. Do people actually watch the whole thing? There was an exciting bit in the last few minutes one day when Mark Cavendish did the sprint at the end. As for time trials....how exciting are they? An amazing achievemnet, but Bradley won't get my vote!

Andy didn't look as though he enjoyed that much did he? Soooo nervous!

Outside of the tennis circle I don't think the general public really realise the enormity of what he's achieved this year.

I think you're right - and to be fair to the general public - as many of us know, it takes a huge amount of time and commitment to be a tennis fan, with matches almost every day at unpredictable times in different time zones etc. Not everyone can do it, even if they would like to.

I only discovered live streams a couple of years ago, and have enjoyed watching all the other tournaments that aren't shown on TV. I think othewrwise it's hard to realise how gruelling the tennis year is. Not sure how other sports compare, as I hardly watch any.

I think you are underlining Madhatters point (not sure if that's deliberate or not). It seems to be universally accepted that the cycling tours are tough. I've yet to hear a person say otherwise - even those who are not fans, or find it deathly dull. Fans of other sports all seem to be very willing to say as much.

In contrast, and Madhatter's point, is that many seem to think tennis is not all that physically demanding. Beyond the physical side of things, there is the sheer competitive scale of tennis. One of the biggest and high profile tennis tournaments is in the UK, but we've not had a winner in a very long time, and that's not just because British tennis players have been rubbish, it's because tennis is taken very seriously in many other countries.

In the UK, we are so used to the newspapers getting over-exited at anyone who looks like they might be fairly good at tennis, we don't actually believe them now we've got a genuine top player in our midst. There are loads of people who casually follow tennis who still think (without particular malice) that Andy is another in a long line of rubbish British tennis players.

I find the debate very interesting. On one hand, there are people who say the success of certain athletes isn't that impressive (particularly the Paralympians) on the grounds that the field wasn't all that competitive, so winning multiple golds doesn't mean you are great. Those same people will point out that Andy only won one of the four grand slams, so he wasn't dominant enough.

IMO, unlike certain other sports, it's very hard to be genuinely dominant in tennis because it is a competitive field and every single match requires a complex mix of skill, tactics and physical strength/stamina, and that will vary from match to match depending on the skills and physical characteristics of your opponent, not forgetting the ever changing elements.

Outside of the tennis circle I don't think the general public really realise the enormity of what he's achieved this year.

I really could not agree more. I would also say that there are some who are making a considerable effort to put down what Andy has done. What I mean is, when Andy won the Olympic gold he was the first Brit to do so in singles for 104 years. That's quite an achievement in itself, but the reaction from some quarters was 'Yes, but it's not a major is it? The Olympics isn't the pinnacle in tennis', blah, blah, blah. What people who thought like that forgot to mention is that for Andy to win the gold he had to play a best of five set match, exactly the same as he would in a major final, and against a multi-major winner too, one who had beaten him in a major final just 28 days previously. Well, as we know, Andy didn't just beat him, he wiped the court with him, and don't even get me started on the 'Federer was tired' debate.

Then there is the USO, which in some eyes is invalid because Nadal wasn't there. I'm sure you, like me, didn't realise that a win is only a win if you beat an opponent who isn't even there, and one that even if he had been you would only be able to meet in the final anyway. Seriously, do some people actually put any thought into their attempts to put Andy down? Again, Andy had to beat a multi-slam winner, the defending champion no less, who hadn't lost in a hard court major for two years, but Andy went and did it, and over five sets too. I'm still inclined to agree with Mark Petchey that it was better for Andy to win like that than in straight sets. You can't fluke a win like that no matter what anyone says.

I must mention Wimbledon though, because although it didn't go the way we would have wanted in the final, it was still one heck of an achievement to get there. Andy carries the weight of expectation at Wimbledon, from a nation, who, let's be honest about it, couldn't give a flying fig about the sport at any other time of the year. This year he might have been less pressurised to start with, given that he'd gone out of Queen's so early, but all that changed when Rosol put Nadal out. In some eyes Andy might as well have been given a bye to the final. I'm still glad he didn't see it like that. Still, it put the pressure back on to him, and then some. Facing Tsonga in the semi's doesn't sound as tough as Nadal on the face of it, but in some ways it is worse, surely. Against Nadal Andy would have been the under-dog. Against Tsonga he was the red-hot favourite. Losing to Tsonga would arguably have been a disaster. Just as well Andy didn't lose then, huh? I don't think I'll ever forget Andy coming through that match, the sense that we'd just watched history being made, the crowd going mad, Mark Petchey sounding like he was about to burst a blood vessel, or burst into tears, maybe even both, and having his own little 'they think it's all over' moment. Then there was our Andy, who was almost on the brink of tears, and understandably so. As for the final, I went from wanting to hug the crowd to wanting to strangle every last one of them, and then crying right along with some of them at the end. I wonder in retrospect what Andy would have thought that day if he could have been told what lay just around the corner for him, that history hadn't given up and gone home, but was still beckoning.

The nature of what Andy has done this year is mind-boggling. Wasn't during the USO final that Petch talked about the number of first time major winners there have been in the open era? I can't remember how many he said, but I am sure he said that only 14 of them, 15 if you include Andy now, have beaten multi-major winners. It's wonderful to think that Andy is now on that list, but what I also think is amazing is that Andy has beaten two multi-major winners this year, in finals, for the biggest prizes in the sport, and of course he had to beat Djokovic in the semi of the Olympics too, to get to the final. The fact that he did that after those four major final losses is a remarkable achievement, and one that I think says so much for his character, and also the future that could be ahead for him.

The nature of what Andy has done this year is mind-boggling. Wasn't during the USO final that Petch talked about the number of first time major winners there have been in the open era? I can't remember how many he said, but I am sure he said that only 14 of them, 15 if you include Andy now, have beaten multi-major winners. It's wonderful to think that Andy is now on that list, but what I also think is amazing is that Andy has beaten two multi-major winners this year, in finals, for the biggest prizes in the sport, and of course he had to beat Djokovic in the semi of the Olympics too, to get to the final. The fact that he did that after those four major final losses is a remarkable achievement, and one that I think says so much for his character, and also the future that could be ahead for him.